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5 Reasons I Love: Super Sonico Figures

It is no secret, I am a huge fan of Super Sonico. Almost as big of a fan as I am for Mami. Well, maybe not quite but, you get the picture. Being the second most featured character on Tiro Finale, I figured I ought to share with you, my readers, the merits of including Sonico in the list especially since she shares so little in common with Mami. With Sonico's 10th Anniversary this year, I figured now would be the best time to share the five reasons why I love Super Sonico.

1. Design

The fundamental reason Sonico caught my eye in the first place was plain and simply, design. In an anime world obsessed with portraying its females character with extremely unrealistic proportions -especially with its bust-to-body ratio-, Sonico is a breath of fresh air. With her decidedly chubby proportions, Sonico is at the very least an attempt at realistic proportions for busty females. For that, we can thank Santa Tsuji, the original creator of Super Sonico, for that and his interest in curvier women. Couple that together with her infectiously optimistic attitude, it really is no surprise Sonico became the hit that she is today. Sure, some may argue that Sonico's bust is still unrealistically large. Then again, you would have to stretch your imagination rather far to consider a pink-haired, permanently headphone wearing, musician cum model cum university student to be very realistic. Instead, what we have is a perfect combination of factors from Sonico's outward appearance (pink hair, headphones) to her inward personality which makes for a positively unique character that stands out from the sea of female archetypes we have today.

2. Variety

Officially, Sonico is an 18 year old university student who works part time as a model, the lead vocalist and guitarist in her three-piece band First Astronomical Velocity, helper at her grandmother's restaurant and the keeper of 5 cats. Talk about multi-roles! The first part of her occupation (model) alone is sufficient ammunition to produce a multitude of figures but, Sonico takes it one step further. From figures of her daily life with her cats to her modelling and music career, there is never a shortage of Sonico figures to collect. Even the more obscure things such as Sonico cosplaying as a mermaid, unicorn or even nun holy girl have been made! Rest assured, if you ever decided to collect Sonico figures, you would never run out of choices.

3. Affordability

When it comes to figures, the talk of affordability is often swept under the rug. Concepts like, figure collecting is not meant to be cheap or cheap equals poor quality is often the case of the matter when cost is brought up. But, I do not always subscribe to such concepts especially since, figure collecting first and foremost is a hobby and not a necessity. Like any hobby, truly devoting yourself to it will certainly cost you a small fortune. But, at the same time, getting into and enjoying the hobby should not cost an arm and a leg either because not everybody has such disposable income at the ready. Super Sonico is wildly popular both in Japan and everywhere else in the world, that much is established and true. With that popularity comes a string of merchandise, mass produced to be sold all over the world. Besides the obvious benefit of mass production driving retail prices down, Sonico is also made into figures of all shapes and sizes to appeal to the mass market. From the cute Kyun-Chara deformed figures to the more erotic scale figures, Sonico is available at any price point to appeal to any collector whether they are a novice or seasoned veteran. Need further proof of what I just mentioned? Take a look at the Kyun-Chara Sonico above.

4. Availability

Super Sonico figures are common. In fact, they are very common. Walk into any hobby store in Japan and I can guarantee you there will be a Sonico figure of some sort lying around. Like Saber and Hatsune Miku, Sonico's reach is far and wide purveying almost every aspect of this hobby. To that extent, there are hardly any "rare" Sonico figures per se short of the ones which were part of the earlier production series while Sonico was still gaining in popularity. Because of that, prices are often low in the re-sellers market and finding your desired Sonico figure is never too hard. The better question is, where do you stop?

5. No Head Seam (!!)

This final reason is probably and very likely only limited to me. Head seams on figures really irk me as they are the most obvious way to break the illusion of the character. But, it is a necessary measure as eliminating the head seam can be a very costly manufacturing process. To that extent, Sonico herself is not free of head seam as her manufacturing methods are identical to every other figure in the market. The one thing that makes all the difference though, are those headphones. Never seen without them, Sonico's headphones deceptively cover up her head seam with the black headband neatly blending into the head seam. It may sound extremely silly for me to say this but, a big reason I still continue to collect Sonico figures is this.

Sonico tips her hat to you.

At the end of the day, Sonico is more then just some doe-eyed busty anime character. In fact, there are already an abundance of characters just like that in the genre. But, neither of them come as close in terms of popularity to Super Sonico. As such, to say Super Sonico is something special may be a little bit of an understatement.

With that, those were my five reasons I love Super Sonico. I certainly hope you enjoyed that read and I would love to read what you think in the comments section below. Most importantly, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!